


You're the only one I'd do this for

by youlostpleiad



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:26:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27183794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youlostpleiad/pseuds/youlostpleiad
Summary: “How are you feeling?” It’s the first thing out of Katara’s mouth when she sees Suki. She and Aang had been gone for a few days but Sokka was thankful that the trip was short. They were getting closer and closer to the birth and Sokka wouldn’t trust any but his sister to help Suki.“I’m tired, she’s getting heavy.”aka:Bryke never gave me a Sukka baby and that's illegal so [insert that Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith meme here, in which I am will and this fic is Jada]
Relationships: Sokka/Suki (Avatar)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26





	You're the only one I'd do this for

**Author's Note:**

> Don't ask me why I thought of this, but I did, and apologies in advance for the angst, that's not usually what I do but oh well.  
> Also it does end happy, I promise.  
> Also for context, I imagine Sokka and Suki would mostly live either on Kyoshi Island or The South Pole, and like skip around between the two, and other places they had to go to for work purposes!

The first time Sokka seriously considers it is when Bato shows up in Kyoshi Island and does what is probably the worst attempt at landing Appa that Sokka has ever seen. _There’s a learning curve,_ Bato tells him, and Sokka tries his hardest not to laugh and make a joke about how his landing sure had curved. But he isn’t expecting a visit from anyone in the Southern Water Tribe, let alone Bato, so he knows the situation has to be serious, especially if Bato has brought Appa with him.

When Bato eventually manages to dismount Appa he walks up to Sokka and asks him if Suki can get some time off of training the Kyoshi Warrior’s new recruits, which means people need them in the South Pole. Sokka nods, they’re meant to start chi blocking training with Ty Lee soon anyway, he’s sure something can be arranged. And then Bato tells him that Aang and Katara have come back. That they are staying for a while, Sokka’s face falls, what could possibly be so serious that the Tribe needed the Avatar’s help? But Bato smiles and clasps his shoulder and says, “Lighten up, it’s nothing bad. Your sister just wants you there when she has the baby,” and Sokka’s world suddenly gets brighter.

So they go. Suki arranges things so the recruits can complete their training and they pack as fast they can, and then Sokka is right back up on Appa. It had been too long. It made him feel carefree. Like he was a kid again, except when he was a kid things had never been this peaceful. 

Sokka spends months watching his grandmother and Katara make little clothes. Aang and Suki join them trying to learn how to make South Pole weather-resistant clothing even if they know how to make some clothes already. He helps where he can. He goes fishing, takes over the warrior training when Hakoda complains that he’s getting too old and that its’s Sokka’s job anyway. He takes Aang penguin sledding one last time because he is 21 and a walking mountain of stress. He’s still the 12 year old they found on an iceberg, but he is so much more. Sokka finds the biggest penguins in the South Pole, and tells Aang he’s going to be a good father and lets him be a child one last time before he has his own.

Then suddenly one day Katara is screaming and Sokka is forced to leave her side because she thoroughly did not enjoy his joke attempts, which in his defence birth jokes are hard, okay? A whole baby is coming out of his sister, and that isn’t a situation Sokka ever thought he’d need to have jokes for! So really Katara, did you _have_ to make him wait outside in the cold while people who aren’t even related to you get to stay inside and help? He feels marginally better when Hakoda joins him outside, birth jokes, it seems, don't run in the family. 

But eventually, they hear the baby cry and rush back inside, and Katara looks more tired than when they fought a war, but she’s happy. And Aang is by her side crying but smiling like he’s just seen the most beautiful thing in the world, and Sokka thinks he might just have. He lets everyone talk to them and leave before he walks up to his sister, Aang kisses her softly and brings Bumi’s hand to lips before getting up and leaving too, he hugs Sokka on his way out and then it’s just the three of them. He sits down next to her and looks at Bumi sleeping in her arms and he can’t help but touch his little hand, then Bumi closes his fist around one of Sokka’s fingers and he starts crying softly. He had managed to hold out for most of the day. 

“I am so proud of you,” he tells her, “I can’t even tell you how much,” he presses a kiss to her forehead and holds her for a while.

Eventually, she tells him, “I just wish mom was here to meet him.”

“She’s watching us somewhere. She’s proud of you too. I know she is.”

“That’s what dad said. I’m just really scared I’m going to mess up.”

“You will. And that’s fine, everyone messes up. But you’re going to be the best mother in the world, Katara, I’m sure of that.”

When Aang comes back a few minutes later he tells him how proud of him he is too, and then Sokka leaves. They need to rest. He sleeps with his back to Suki’s chest that night and thinks seriously for the first time about how just maybe he wants to be a father too. 

\--

Two years later they come back and when Sokka holds Kya and he knows for sure.

\--

He talks to Suki about it. They're 26 and more in love than ever, but Sokka is still a little scared to tell her. He thinks Suki will understand the way he's feeling. He saw the way her face lit up when she held Kya and how she smiled when Bumi tried to take her on a tour of the Southern Tribe only to keep forgetting which building was which and who lived where (and in Bumi's defence the tribe had been through some major revamping since the Northern Tribe had come to help them, and now that Katara was there so often they had far more power than could ever need to build up their village.) But he doesn't know if Suki would actually want to have her own kids. He’s scared because they were always so caught up in living in the moment. It was all they knew to do after everything. They were always too busy travelling between Kyoshi and The South Pole and the Fire Nation and Ba Sing Se. Caught up in trying to just live each day because they both knew how easy it was to lose something meaningful because they’d been separated too many times before. The truth is simply that he had stopped thinking that a future was something he could hope to have at one point. One too many close calls will do that to you. But the thing is Katara and Aang are happy. Zuko and Mai are happy. Toph is happy. And that’s exactly what they all deserve. So yes, he’s scared, terrified, but he wants to be a father. He thinks back to the way Suki smiled at Bumi and Kya when she held them and something tightens in his chest all over again. He loves her. And he knows that she loves him. And he wants to stop being afraid that it will all disappear from under him. He wants to believe that he gets to be the guy who has a family. So he’s scared, but he talks to Suki about it. When she kisses him and tells him she wants a family too he’s so happy he could explode.

\--

“How are you feeling?” It’s the first thing out of Katara’s mouth when she sees Suki. She and Aang had been gone for a few days but Sokka was thankful that the trip was short. They were getting closer and closer to the birth and Sokka wouldn’t trust anyone but his sister to help Suki. 

“I’m tired, she’s getting heavy.”

Katara kneels on the floor besides Suki and bends some water towards her stomach. This might be Sokka’s favourite bending trick that Katara has ever learned. She moves the water all the way up to his ear and he can hear Kyoshi’s heartbeat, he can hear his daughter’s heart, as clearly as if his ear was against her chest, but he has to wait a while longer for that. “How is she doing?” Katara asks him. 

“Amazing,” he’s on the verge of tears. It’s been like that a lot lately, “like you,” he tells Suki. 

Suki grabs his hand and kisses it lightly, “How much more do you think we have to wait, Katara?”

Katara moves the water back to Suki’s stomach, and after a few seconds says, “I think a few more days. Two, or maybe three. She’s almost ready.”

Suki squeezes his hand and stares at him smiling. He’s every bit as excited as she is. 

“I’m really proud of you both,” Katara says 

\--

In the end, Katara is right, two days later they’re all eagerly awaiting Kyoshi’s birth. Hakoda had pulled him aside earlier and Sokka had thought his dad would give him a long talk about responsibilities and how hard being a parent is, but Hakoda just hugs him and tells him that he’s proud. He hugs him and says that Sokka has the biggest heart he’s ever known someone to have and that his grandchild couldn’t have asked for a better father. When he sits next to Suki and gives her his hand he’s suddenly not scared at all.

Then everything is a blur, but there are some things he remembers clearly: the calm and adoration in Katara’s voice when she told Suki to breathe and push, the occasional pat on the shoulder from Aang, Bato or his father, the sweat on suki’s forehead each time he bent down to kiss it, the way he had to bite his lips shut not to scream every time Suki squeezed his hand and mostly, that when Kyoshi is born she does not cry.

\--

Sokka doesn’t feel like he’s real. He helps Suki clean up and helps her stand and then she holds his face and leans their foreheads together before saying, “your sister is the best waterbender in the world, we’re in The South Pole, there’s water everywhere, she can help her, I know she can.”

Sokka nods and says nothing, he trusts Katara. But he remembers Yue’s story too. 

When they step outside Katara has broken the ice of the floor to make a pond and she’s inside it with Kyoshi, trying her hardest to heal his daughter. When she looks up at him and Suki he knows that she can’t. 

“I tried everything,” she tells them, “I don’t know how to fix it.”

He falls down to his knees and takes Kyoshi from the pond and holds her. She’s trying so hard to keep breathing but he can tell she’s struggling. Still, he drops his head to her chest and lightly presses his ear against it, and he hears her heartbeat. Suki sits next to him and says in the faintest voice he’s ever heard from her, “Let me hold her,” and when Sokka lays Kyoshi across Suki’s arms he sees that her eyes are wet, just like his, and he knows she’s doing the same thing he is, trying not to cry, trying to be strong for everyone else. He wraps one arm around Suki and puts one finger over Kyoshi’s palm but she’s not even strong enough to grab it. 

“Sokka, there is a way,” Katara says when she’s back by Aang’s side, “you could ask _her_.”

“Ask who?” Suki says.

“No.”

“Yue lived Sokka,” Katara continues, “she-”

“Yes. She lived. And then she died in my arms when she was sixteen. She gave her life to save the world because some man thought he could kill the moon. I am not putting my own daughter through that. I am not putting the fate of the world in her hands. I can’t.”

Suki turns her head to look at him and hesitantly says, “I would take a day over nothing at all.”

And he knows she’s right, he knows he can’t just wait and let her die, but he can’t imagine the pain he will be in if history repeats itself, and he ends up losing his daughter anyway. 

Then suddenly, to ask isn’t his choice to make anymore. They’re surrounded by light, and he knows it’s her.

“Sokka, let me help,” he can't stand to look up. Yue doesn't sound like she used to, her voice feels distorted and distant. She puts a hand on his face and tries to make him look at her but he can't open his eyes. He can't. He knows what she looks like now, an almost translucent being, every bit of her white as snow and he just isn't strong enough to look up and see her like that. Not when she's this close to him. Not when the last time she was this close to him was when she died in his arms. He feels her move closer and she tells him, "They can't hurt me where I am. I am not Tui. No human can kill me where I am, Sokka. She will grow and she will be happy and she will live a full life on this earth where she belongs because I won't let it be any other way, this is my fate to live out not hers." 

"Sokka," Suki is still right next to him when she calls his name, "Please. I know you're scared but we have to do something." 

He knows Suki well enough to hear the tremor in her voice. The truth is, he is terrified. The truth is Sokka keeps seeing Zhao, and the moon turned red and then black, and Yue in his arms vanishing. He never knew how Chief Arnook managed to keep himself going after he lost Yue, but after holding his daughter today he knows this: that is simply not a strength he has within himself. Sokka has fought wars and faced certain death more times than anyone should, but he has never been more scared in his life than in this moment. Suki moves closer and presses her forehead against his shoulder, and in her arms between them, Kyoshi is still barely breathing. 

He opens his eyes and feels blinded by Yue's shine, "Please save her," he whispers. Because he's terrified. Because he doesn't think he'll be able to move on if he loses her this quickly. He's already lost so much. 

Suki carefully lays their baby in Yue's arms, she walks into the little pond and lets herself sink until Kyoshi is floating. He pulls Suki close against his side and kisses her head, she hugs his torso like the connection is the only thing keeping her alive. Yue closes her eyes and the water around her starts to glow, and the light grows and grows until everything is white around them, until they have to close their eyes because it hurts to keep them open. Then suddenly they hear a cry. The light dims, and dims, until it's gone, and Yue with it. But he looks down and there's his daughter floating in the water crying as hard as her little lungs will let her, her hair white. Suki runs into the water and comes out holding her, trying to soothe her crying. Sokka walks up behind Suki and holds her, they're all crying now. He's never felt so much relief in his life, he reaches for Kyoshi's hand and she wraps her little fingers around his thumb and he starts crying harder. This is the most beautiful moment of his life. Knowing she is safe, that she is healthy, he feels his heart grow in his chest in a way that had always seemed impossible. 

She's crying less and less as Suki rocks her gently in her arms. Sokka looks at her and says, "I love you." Suki makes a noise that sounds like a swallowed sob and tells Kyoshi, "I'm happy you're okay, my love." 

His father comes up behind him and says, “You should take her inside. You need time with her and she needs to eat.” So they go. 

When they’re inside Suki sits and starts feeding Kyoshi, Sokka sits behind her with his head over Suki’s shoulder so he can see, so he can know for certain that she is okay. 

“I’m sorry,” he tells Suki, “I’m sorry I hesitated. I couldn’t have. Not when it was about her.”

“I understand why you did it,” Suki says. Sokka is stunned, “I know how much it hurt you to lose Yue. I know why you’re scared that this might hurt her one day. I’m scared too.”

“I just don’t want to lose her. Not ever.”

“We won’t,” there’s a certainty in Suki’s voice that he thinks she’s putting on for him, “She promised.”

Eventually, Kyoshi falls asleep. They sit just holding her, looking at her and watching her sleep peacefully, taking big breaths in and out. 

“We should take her outside,” Suki says, “Bumi was excited to meet her I don’t want him to be sad he had to wait until morning.” So get up and go. 

The truth is Sokka’s starting to think he won’t ever not be terrified again. But he has also never felt anything as strong as what he feels when he sees Kyoshi, so ultimately he thinks he will be okay. He has his father, Katara, Aang, Bumi and Kya, his friends, in some way, tonight he found he still has Yue, most of all he has Suki, and they have Kyoshi. There is simply too much love in his life for him to let fear be the emotion that comes out on top. So he won’t.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this and that it wasn't too angsty?  
> Also, I thought naming the baby Kyoshi would make Suki embarrassingly happy, and that would make Sokka happy, so yeah.  
> And I'm sorry?  
> Thank you for reading 💕💕


End file.
